


Bandaid Fix

by Psilent (HereThereBeFic)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Akuze, Gen, ME1, No Romance, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect), Spacer (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:54:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3546809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereThereBeFic/pseuds/Psilent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His head is as clear as it’s ever been. He knows who he is and what he wants, in a broad sense, and broad is how he leaves it. He is an Alliance soldier and he wants to help people, and he has the means and the capacity to do that.</p><p>Good. Great. Life figured out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bandaid Fix

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have any good shots of my Shepard because I play on the PS3, so the best I can do is uh: [here](http://defectivevorta.tumblr.com/post/109395162319/luv-this-armor-luv-this-shepard-luv-this-jacob).
> 
> Content warnings: PTSD, grief, death, survivor's guilt. Vomiting mentioned but avoided.

One day Dex Shepard gets out of his sleeper pod and realizes he’s a hero.

In the face of this realization and in the middle of a mission, there is nowhere to hide, so he smothers hysterical laughter behind his hands and reports to his post.

-

He really should have noticed it earlier. Maybe the first or second or sixth time a reporter ambushed him on his way out of a store, a docking bay, a public restroom.

The first couple of interviews were disastrous in that specific way that the media loves to blast over every available channel, and he spent a few months of his medical leave holed up in a hotel room with everything turned off, afraid to set foot outside and be greeted by his own face blinking at him in a daze from a hundred different screens, his own empty voice magnified and enhanced by the best software available, the better to hear every crack:

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I just survived.”

_(“–remarkable strength of-”_

“– _genuine empathy and devastation over the loss of–”_

“– _everything the Alliance strives to–”_

“– _and isn’t he_ _ **modest**_ _, folks?”)_

-

There are a lot of arguments about when he will or will not be ready to return to active duty. He mostly stays out of them.

“It’s all just political bullshit,” his mother says sourly, on the other end of an audio-only comm link. “The PR lackeys know it’ll look good for the survivor of Akuze to be up and running ASAP, prove to the rest of the galaxy what humans are made of, all that. Don’t you let them put you back out there before you’re ready, kid. They know which doctors can be paid off.”

“I’m fine,” Dex assures her, and for the first time in a while it doesn’t feel like as much of a blatant lie.

Hannah Shepard has been calling her son as often as she can, hasn’t been able to swing an actual visit since the hazy blur that was the two weeks immediately following his return, and most of everything she’s said in every conversation has gone over his head while he sits and stares at the comm link and lets his brain fuzz over and just take the simple fact of his mother’s voice as some kind of balm. If he doesn’t think about the specifics of the situation, he could be six years old and listening to her tell stories after a nightmare.

This time, though, he listens. He comprehends. He takes in what she’s saying and manages to hold onto it and consider it and genuinely agree with it, not just verbally smile and nod. That’s progress, right?

“Everything’s fine,” he says.

The ringing silence on the other end of the line is so very obviously his mother pulling a face at him that he starts to laugh. “I’ll  _be fine_ ,” he assures her. “I’m not jumping down into a war zone anytime soon.”

-

Once he’s back at work, the calls become fewer and farther between. He and his mother have always made an effort to check in when they can, but they both have jobs to do and those jobs have long hours and aren’t anywhere near each other. It’s Captain Anderson who invites him out to lunch one day, levels a piercing look at him over some disgustingly expensive salads, and says, “The shock’s wearing off, isn’t it?”

Dex opens his mouth, feels in the very depths of his  _soul_  that anything he might be about to say is going to be a terrible idea, and shuts it again. He stands, wordlessly, walks calmly to the bathroom, and spends about thirty seconds splashing cold water on his face and refusing to look in a mirror.

Then he returns to the table, sits down, looks Anderson in the eye, and says “Yeah, probably.”

It’s not until he’s back on the ship that he realizes today is the two year anniversary.

He freezes for just a second, halfway through suiting up, marines on either side.

“Fuck,” he mutters, slamming his locker shut to drown himself out.

-

He starts to notice the specific ways people look at him.

It’s never been his strong suit. Facial expressions, tone of voice, just, generally, anything involving the decryption of what another person is feeling without being explicitly told. Honestly, in any kind of diplomatic setting, he’d take a room full of Elcor over any other species, including his own.

But he starts to notice.

The looks he gets from civilians around his own age, the ones who recognize him, the fear and the awe and the inner debate about whether or not they’re going to approach him. He gets very good at smiling politely and posing for pictures and not saying out loud that he’s just on his way to buy some damn groceries because he’s a Human being and he needs  _food_. And  _privacy_.

The looks he gets from the veterans, the ones who shoo off the younger admirers and shake his hand, the quiet solidarity and the simple understanding. Dex forgets, in their company, that he is not an old man.

The looks he gets from his fellow soldiers are a mixed bag. Admiration for the hero, respect for the survivor, resentment for the Alliance’s golden boy, pity for the victim. He learns to work with or ignore each one.

The looks he gets, especially, from the top brass whenever they cross paths, the appraisal and calculation and varying degrees of satisfaction or trepidation as they each decide in turn whether or not he’s measuring up to the reputation they’ve had their PR experts build for him. He never knows whether he wants to stand straighter under their scrutiny or unbutton his collar and drink himself into a daze before they even arrive just to piss them off and see what they’d do.

He says as much to Anderson. Off the record.

Off the record, Anderson laughs and claps him on the back. “You could probably get away with it. They’ve got too much riding on you to risk a public denouncement.”

“They just go on and on about all the responsibility I’ve got on my shoulders, all the people gauging humanity based on  _me_ ,” Dex says, more bitterly than he intended to if Anderson’s sudden silence is anything to go by. “I didn’t  _ask_  for any of it.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“All I did was survive.”

“All you have to do is keep it up.”

-

About six months into the third year, somebody must decide that he’s adapted well enough to be trusted on camera with official Alliance endorsement again, because they shove him into a dress uniform and haul him up on a stage in front of the entire extranet and a physical audience just large enough for the crowd shots and they award him a medal for outliving the people he was supposed to protect.

He spends about twenty minutes in front of a mirror beforehand, searching for an expression that he thinks might convey  _this is an honor_  with a subtle undercut of  _my squad is fucking dead_.

He spends about two hours with his head in a toilet afterwards, no food in his stomach and completely sober but sobbing so hard he’s afraid he’ll be sick. He isn’t.

He wants to flush the damn medal. He doesn’t.

He wants to call his mother.

He doesn’t do that, either.

-

His head is as clear as it’s ever been. He knows who he is and what he wants, in a broad sense, and broad is how he leaves it. He is an Alliance soldier and he wants to help people, and he has the means and the capacity to do that.

Good. Great. Life figured out.

“This will last,” he tells himself, every time he wakes up full of energy and purpose and complete and utter terror at the fragility of it all. “This will last.”

-

“ _Me_?” he can’t help but demand, waiting for the other shoe to drop because it’s been almost five years but he still forgets what people think of him.

At any rate, he thought Anderson knew better. Shouldn’t have locked him out of that bathroom after the awards ceremony.

“You’re the best there is,” Anderson says, arms crossed, gaze unwavering. Dex takes it for the challenge it is and doesn’t break the contact.

“You sound like the recruitment vids,” he says, but Anderson shakes his head.

“You know better than that, kid. I’ve known you since before you joined up. I’m not taking this from the vids and I’m not taking it from the higher-ups: I’m taking it from  _you_. From the things I’ve seen you do, the things I’ve seen you survive. I know you don’t like it but there is a  _reason_  you’re their favorite. Wouldn’t matter if you weren’t.  _You_  have what it takes to do this.”

In a sudden haze of nerves and emotion, Dex just manages not to reflexively jump to attention and salute. “Thank you, sir,” he says instead. “I’ll consider it.”

“Consider fast.”

-

“I’m fine,” Ashley Williams says, back straight, chin tilted up, eyes hard, and Dex has a new mission.

“Williams,” he says, before he can overthink names and ranks and titles and what level of professionalism this situation calls for. “You know I know better than that.”

“I can take care of myself, Commander.”

“You’ve more than proved that, soldier. Doesn’t mean you’re fine.”

“With all due respect,” she grits out, teeth clenched, “if it doesn’t impact my ability to do my job, I don’t see why we’re discussing it.  _Sir_.”

Which is insubordinate as all hell, but Dex just catches her eye and says “If you change your mind, I’ll be here,” and gives her her space.

-

A few days later, Williams stops the elevator between levels. “You know, blame it on the stress or the trauma or whatever, but when you said I knew you  _knew_ better, I didn’t know what the hell you were talking about. Sir.”

Dex blinks. “You wh- oh. Shit.  _Shit_. I’m… so sorry, uh… Definitely didn’t mean to start bragging about my  _rep_  at you in the wake of... _that_ ; I guess I’m just… used to everyone flipping through that part of my life like a magazine.”

“I know the feeling.”

“…I, uh. Wasn’t going to ask.”

“I’ll tell you anyway. Yes, my grandfather was  _that_  Williams. No, I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

“Noted.”

She leans back against the elevator wall, staring blankly at the door. “Does it get easier?”

Okay. They're doing this now. They're having this conversation in an elevator.

Cool. Sure.

Dex takes a deep breath. “It can. It can take forever and it can feel like shit, like it's not _supposed_ to get easier, but it  _can_.”

“They were my friends,” she says quietly. “I keep… It’s such a small thing. But I keep seeing things that remind me of running jokes we had and there’s no one to make them with anymore.”

“That’s not a small thing. None of it is.”

“Why was it me? Why did  _I_ survive?”

“That’s… not something I can answer for you. I can tell you it’s because you’re a good soldier, and you can tell me that so were they. I can tell you it was luck, but that’s insulting.”

“I keep thinking… maybe it’s that I’m  _meant_  for something. You know? That God saved me because there’s something important I’m supposed to do later.”

She glances up at him, and, as exhausted as she sounds, there is a challenge in her eyes. “Hope that’s… not a problem. The… God thing, I mean.”

“Course not. And if that’s the answer that works for you–”

Williams snorts a laugh and shakes her head. “It really doesn’t. Mostly it makes me feel like a self-absorbed  _ass_  trying to convince myself I’m some sort of _chosen one_. I’m no better than any of them were. Seriously, Commander, if you have any more suggestions, I’m all ears.”

Dex sighs, and leans back against a hand rail. “The Geth play favorites. They drew straws for targets and the rookie picked you. Everyone else’s armor malfunctioned, you’re just  _faster_ , you had better cover; honestly, Williams, the only answer that’s going to mean anything is one that comes from you.”

Williams is staring at the floor now, tears running down her face. She does nothing to acknowledge them so neither does he. “Did you find yours?” she asks. “Your answer?”

Vague half-truths spring to his tongue immediately but he bites them back. She deserves honesty. Not false hope for her immediate future and the lie of a simple x-step grieving process. “Not yet.”

She looks at him, her eyes glossed over with tears. “What do you tell yourself, then? How do you – what the hell am I supposed to  _do_? If there’s some magic bandaid fix you think might last until the end of this mission – I know it's not the _healthy_ thing, but we have to _finish_ this.”

“We survived because we  _did_ ,” Dex says quietly. “And all we have to do now is keep it up.”

“Bullshit,” she snaps, and then coughs, and wipes her face. “ _Sir_.”

“Yeah, I thought the same thing when Anderson said it to me a few years back. I held onto it anyway. It’s helped. Pick a reason, Williams. Live on in their honor, avenge their deaths, don’t waste the life you still have and they don’t. Whatever it takes to keep you going until you figure it out for real. Bandaid fix.”

Williams sniffs, straightens up, and faces him with a watery smirk. “Revenge sounds nice.”

“Good.”


End file.
